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Hang With Friends

Location: Earth
Members: 807
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Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

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Discussion Forum

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Aldrich Lloyd Talonding is going to take the world by storm. What do you think? He's singing Dance With My Father Again. Continue

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Comment by John Lynch on January 7, 2013 at 9:36am

Hate seems to indicate hurting someone. I think that is the end result when you hate. Love can hurt if you are rejected by the people you love. I think it is easier to get over rejection that a continued hate of people. I resent some people for sure but I can avoid them rather than hating. On the other hand I would have a hard time not hating someone who hurt my children. Maybe there is a balance of some kind to keep us sane. Interesting topic.

Comment by Idaho Spud on January 7, 2013 at 8:13am

I can relate to the pudgy pooch who's walk is over.

Comment by Idaho Spud on January 7, 2013 at 8:06am

Chris, I very much like what you say about helping older people study without pain.  My mother suffered at the hands of a teacher that caused her a great deal of pain, and made her hate school.

I also very much like what you say about training to make people into docile slaves.  I've seen that in the company I worked for, In the church I was raised in, in government "leaders", but didn't notice it in education.  Now that you mention it, I think you're right.

Comment by booklover on January 7, 2013 at 7:44am

Comment by booklover on January 7, 2013 at 7:43am

Carl, I find different kinds of love take no time at all and are permanent and easy.  That is the unconditional love I had and will always have, from the moment they were born.  I also love animals (a different love from my children, but an unconditional love all the same) because they have no agenda and don't hurt on-purpose.  The love I have for my husband is conditional because there are things he could do that would make me stop loving him, although I don't believe he ever would.  I also deeply love my Mother, Sister, Niece, and Nephew.  Still in a different way from my children.  I loved 3 out of 4 (one was awful) of my now-deceased Grandparents that way.

As to hate, if someone hurts my child, I hate them.  I can't help it.  Even if it doesn't bother my child.  I find hate fades as I get older, like Chris talked about, but not hate for someone who did something to my kids.  I can't even help it, it's just ingrained in me or something.

Love and Hate are complicated sometimes, and sometimes they are both very easy to do!

On to lighter subjects, cute LOL Cat Steph!  I hope everyone has a good week!  I am a little sad, as this is my daughter's last week @ home before she goes back to her University for the Spring Semester!~ Melinda  (p.s. I love all my friends here! lol :)

Comment by Steph S. on January 7, 2013 at 6:45am

Good Morning

Comment by Chris Breman on January 7, 2013 at 4:12am

What is "normal" is really, in fact, sick.

I'm in a discussion here about education, and one of the conclusions is that education is seldom meant to develop children into healthy, happy people who can cope with whatever they meet. More often it's a training to make them into docile, hardworking subjects who won't criticize or think - churches and other authoritarian institutes always want slaves.

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 7, 2013 at 2:49am

sk8eycat, I don't read anything wrong with you; I read a funny lady who has had some hard knocks in life and who refuses to give up. You have every right to  "takes a great deal of effort on my part to either love OR hate". That is a perfectly healthy coping strategy for dealing with life's wounds. 

You clearly make positive impressions on people, as demonstrated by your unseen friend who helped you through a hard place. 

I like your "better dead" strategy and it sounds like it works for you! Good for you. You have intelligence and guts. 

As for teachers who cripple or put mind-binders on their students, they should be ferreted out and taken out of the classroom. The job of a teacher is to facilitate a student's flourishing; find their strength and build on that. What is "normal" is really, in fact, sick. So we have to figure out what healthy is and inspire students to reach for their healthy. 

If conflict is hard for you, trust yourself by being who you are. You are a loner for a reason, as long as you know you are not alone. You have experiences that made you who you are, and you can mine the deep down parts of yourself and allow them to blossom, in whatever way you are to blossom. 

You are a very special lady to me and I thoroughly enjoy your comments.

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 7, 2013 at 2:29am

Chris Breman, I very much agree with and like what you stated about working with the elderly and helping them to overcome imposed limitations. It is so much fun to watch people blossom to full bloom at any age. 

As to the forgiveness matter, I am glad you find a way that works for you and that you find comfort. Loving is so much fun that it really sparks oxytocin in my bloodstream and I find it very easy to bond with people with a gentle character.  

Oxytocin is a brain peptide known to promote positive interpersonal  relations. It makes people like one another. New mothers are awash in oxytocin (which is involved in the labor process), and it is believed that the hormone promotes bonding between mother and infant.

New studies focus on a provocative and growing body of new science examining the role of oxytocin in competitive sports.

So, there is hope for all of us, even those of us who choose not to forgive. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 7, 2013 at 2:17am

The Flying Atheist, I am biased. That said, one of the great fallacies of christianity is the imperative to love everyone. I believed that, hook line and sinker. "Love him to the Lord" was the sickest advice I have ever had and it is even evil. The more love I poured out the more the children and I suffered physical and mental pain. I don't want to ever forget that pain because it is jet propulsion fuel that keeps me working against violence in the home. 

I was also told by just about everyone to forgive him. I do not and will not. ever. He violated our trust without concern about what it did to us. 

The odd think is, I have finally learned how to forgive me. I tolerated intolerable behavior for far too many years and all it got me was more pain, shame, guilt. 

I feel strong now, and trustworthy, reliable, responsible, capable, compassionate and all the things I had to deny myself before. I am free. 

Now, as to my life at this time, I am the happiest I have ever been, I enjoy my family and friends and neighbors in very special ways and we all have special relationships. Winters I spend reading and writing and cooking the most delicious meals you can imagine. Spring, summer and autumn I spend most days in my garden, just playing, or visiting, or enjoying the neighbor kids. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do, and I can do everything I want, even though my budget was reduced by half in the most recent melt-down. No problem. I just enjoy what I have and am grateful to be alive and free from abuse. 

I wish all women and their children could say that!

 

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Debra Stevenson commented on Ruth Anthony-Gardner's group Hang With Friends
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Joan Denoo commented on Joan Denoo's album
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sk8eycat commented on Ruth Anthony-Gardner's group Hang With Friends
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